06 December 2008

Bluetooth Technology
Boosts Data Transfer Rates!

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) will release Bluetooth version 2.2, a new specification of the Bluetooth standard, in mid-2009.

This new release will include a specification for High Speed Bluetooth, allowing for Bluetooth-enabled devices to transfer data at greatly increased speeds and giving Bluetooth-enabled handsets many compelling applications beyond voice transmission to a headset.

The High Speed Bluetooth specification will utilize Bluetooth technology in conjunction with either WLAN or UWB for improved data rates, and the two technologies will be marketed as Bluetooth 10x and Bluetooth 100x respectively, nomenclature that refers to the respective data rates of the technologies.

This new standard will allow mobile handset users to utilize the pairing and interoperability advantages of Bluetooth technology and the increased throughputs of WLAN or UWB for wireless video streaming to computers or set-top boxes, wireless printing, and wireless peer to peer content movement, among other applications.

Of course, to utilize this new technology, mobile handsets will need to be equipped with a WLAN or UWB radio. According to IMS Research analyst Chris Schreck, “In handsets, Bluetooth 10x will likely come to market first, with volume shipments starting in 2010.

Because WLAN already has an established presence in handsets, and because it has a proven use case, we’ve seen most handset OEMs express an interest in utilizing the 10x version, at least initially.” He added, “Furthermore, the device environment for WLAN is much more developed than the UWB environment, so handset OEMs may be waiting until there are a greater number of UWB-enabled devices before including UWB in a handset.”

However, IMS Research projects penetration of both WLAN and UWB in handsets to grow over the next 5 years, making significant adoption of High Speed Bluetooth in handsets a very plausible development over that time period.